White House spokesperson Jen Psaki avoided answering a question on whether US President Joe Biden’s administration believes that war crimes were being committed in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip.
“That’s going to be a decision for the international community to make together,” she told reporters as Biden visited Dearborn, Michigan.
“We’re not going to be making an assessment of that from here,” she stressed, noting that the US administration is currently taking every step to reduce the violence to deescalate the situation on the ground, to save lives and to ensure that it is bringing back some stability.
Psaki further defended the administration’s strategy of adopting a quiet diplomatic approach and relying on regional partners.
“Sometimes diplomacy needs to happen behind the scenes; it needs to be quiet.”
Under international law, there are provisions on how countries and other warring parties should act during warfare, referred to as the rules of war. War crimes are deemed a violation of these provisions.
The laws were adopted following World War II, when the International Military Tribunals at Nurnberg and Tokyo prompted renewed interest in protecting civilians during times of war.
The rules of war are universal. The Geneva Conventions (which are the core element of international humanitarian law) have been ratified by all 196 states.
Some examples of prohibited acts include “murder, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture, taking of hostages, intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population, conscripting or enlisting children under the age of 15 years into the national armed forces or using them to participate actively in hostilities and intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.”
According to informed sources, Israeli air strikes on Gaza are “disproportionate,” especially with the intensity of raids targeting civilians, leading to hundreds of casualties. They also leveled a number of Gaza City’s tallest office and residential buildings. Israel has alleged they were housing Hamas members.
On Saturday, Israel destroyed the 12-story al-Jalaa Building, where the offices of The Associated Press, Al-Jazeera television network and other media were are located.
“Deliberately targeting media outlets constitutes a war crime,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.
“By intentionally destroying media outlets, the Israeli army is not only inflicting unacceptable material damage on news operations, but also, more broadly, obstructing media coverage of a conflict that directly affects the civilian population,” he stressed.
